CounterCurrents: Our Titanic Moment! 2014 Was Hottest Year Ever Recorded. Then It Was 2015. Now It’s 2016.

Dear Friend,

The Senate Armed Services Committee gave near-unanimous approval Wednesday to Donald Trump’s choice to head the Pentagon, voting by 26-1 to approve retired Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis as the next secretary of defense. The unanimity of Democratic support for Trump’s national security nominees demonstrates the real nature of the transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration. Whatever their political differences, the Democrats and Republicans are united in their allegiance to the military-intelligence apparatus of US imperialism.

For the third year in a row, the world experienced its warmest year on the books, global scientists have determined. The new assessments come from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the UK’s Met Office, as well as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which relies in part on data from those agencies. The findings also back up the declaration made earlier this month by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Countercurrents calls our era 'our Titanic Moment'. The travellers in the Titanic didn't know their fate until the last moment and then it was too late. What CC tries to do is to make sure that  humanity should not be caught unawares when 'Mother Ship Earth' hits  a rock in our 'icefree' voyage to the future. There are three events that can sink our mother ship earth and destroy most of humanity or even all species on earth. 1. Climate Change. The last three years were historically the warmest years on record and it's not an anomaly. It's a historic trend and we have only a short window of time to save our ship. 2. Peak Oil. We know that the earth  does not have infinite resources. The most abundantly used resources now are water and oil. Water is renewable. Oil is not. There is a point in time when oil production will hit a plateau and start declining. According to International Energy Agency that point reached in 2006. This graph was buried in the 2010 World Energy Outlook 
report
prepared by that agency http://globalchangewatch.weebly.com/uploads/5/7/2/1/5721491/904992473.jpg?719. If the conventional oil peaked in 2006 or so, why do we have cheap oil? That question has put Peak Oil off headlines. The answer  may be summed up as, due to environmentally destructive fracking technology and tar sands mining in North America and the global economic slow down! That doesn't mean that the crisis has gone away. It may have been postponed for  a few years. CC has published hundreds of articles on the subject. Interested readers can read it here . https://www.google.co.in/search?q=peak+oil&domains=http://www.countercurrents.org&sitesearch=http://www.countercurrents.org&btnG=Search&gws_rd=cr&ei=avaAWKS_H4vvvgT1hr2IAw
And the third danger is Nuclear war. Climate Change or Peak Oil can lead to a thermonuclear war as it start playing out in real life situations. 

I'm writing all this as my friend Emily Spence reminded me of an article she wrote on 10 April, 2010 titled, "Peak Oil: Are We Heading Towards Social Collapse?" The article is as relevant as it was originally published. She concluded the article thus "With the current peak-oil interval, we have a grace period when oil is still fairly inexpensive and abundant. At the same time, we cannot expect our government leaders to help society transition off of heavy oil dependence on account of their being controlled by "big business" interests. Therefore, it is up to average citizens to create the reforms that lead into localized economic and social development. If the enterprise is not actively taken in a timely fashion, the resultant chaos, as pointed out by Dmitry Orlov in The Five Stages Of Collapse, will be unavoidable."

And also more stories from around the world. 

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In Solidarity

Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org





US Senate Panel Rubber Stamps “Mad Dog” Mattis For Pentagon Chief
by Patrick Martin 

https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/19/us-senate-panel-rubber-stamps-mad-dog-mattis-for-pentagon-chief/

The Senate Armed Services Committee gave near-unanimous approval Wednesday to Donald Trump’s choice to head the Pentagon, voting by 26-1 to approve retired Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis as the next secretary of defense. The unanimity of Democratic support for Trump’s national security nominees demonstrates the real nature of the transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration. Whatever their political differences, the Democrats and Republicans are united in their allegiance to the military-intelligence apparatus of US imperialism.






2014 Was Hottest Year Ever Recorded. Then It Was 2015. Now It’s 2016.
by Andrea Germanos 

https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/19/2014-was-hottest-year-ever-recorded-then-it-was-2015-now-its-2016/

For the third year in a row, the world experienced its warmest year on the books, global scientists have determined. The new assessments come from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the UK’s Met Office, as well as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which relies in part on data from those agencies. The findings also back up the declaration made earlier this month by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.






If We’re Honest, We All Know Trump’s America
by Robert Jensen 

https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/19/if-were-honest-we-all-know-trumps-america/

While Trump deserves to be harshly critiqued, we should not pretend that he and his supporters are an aberration. When during the campaign President Obama said of Trump, “That’s not the America I know,” my response was: Trump and his supporters, like it or not, represent ideas at the core of the America that we all know, if we are willing to be honest. Trump articulates ideas that are closer to what is considered “normal” in the United States than many of us are willing to acknowledge.






Scoundrels Of Patriotism: The Freeing Of Chelsea Manning
by Dr Binoy Kampmark

https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/19/scoundrels-of-patriotism-the-freeing-of-chelsea-manning/

In the scheme of things, it is probably best to stay faithful to friends and fashioned principles than brutally abstract states, with policies written in water in the name of the national interest.  To interpret, in other words, that national interest, is to give form to a shape shifting aberration. How best to be a scoundrel in patriotism remains a near impossible question to answer. Manning, at least, came closer to a better response than most.






The Legacy Of Iran’s Powerful Cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
by Akbar E Torbat  

https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/19/the-legacy-of-irans-powerful-cleric-akbar-hashemi-rafsanjani/

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the main pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran, died on January 8, 2017, in Tehran. The Islamic government announced the cause of his death as heart attack, but some other sources have claimed he was killed by the agents within the clerical regime. According to one source, he was suffocated in a Sa’dabad complex swimming pool while the surveillance cameras of the pool area were switched off






The Three-Way Tug Of War That’s Pulling Syria Apart
by Nauman Sadiq

https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/19/the-three-way-tug-of-war-thats-pulling-syria-apart/

Last month, the Islamic State recaptured Palmyra from where it was evicted by the Syrian army only in March; and this week, the Islamic State has launched a fierce assault in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, near Syria’s border with Iraq, and has successfully managed to surround the military airport, thus cutting off food supplies to the besieged city.





Ayyankali: Pioneer Of Radical Revolt Against Brahmanism In Kerala
by Tata Sivaih  

https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/19/ayyankali-pioneer-of-radical-revolt-against-brahmanism-in-kerala/

Ayyankali, the Dalit firebrand in Kerala who fought Caste apartheid through innovation and resistance that inspires even till today. A contemporary of Ambedkar he was born into the Pulaya community in Thiruvananthapuram. He burned with the injustices his community faced. Dalits were landless and exploited, punished for crossing into caste hindu areas, and both men and women were targets of violence forced to into draconian states of undress.